In 2016, event promotion is not complete without a social media strategy. Sure, leading up to the event posts promoting attendance are vigilantly published. But where most organizations falter is covering the event. We understand, social media is often a secondary responsibility, not a specific role. That’s where digital media experts come in.

We’ve put together this case study on our most recent live event coverage for HPN Global’s 2016 Partners Conference. Tactics included everything from live tweeting to LinkedIn spotlights, but the star of our strategy was Facebook. We also developed a custom app for the fourth year in a row, that enabled streamlined communication between coordinators and attendees via a digital environment. Here are the results:

The App

This app, created specifically for HPN Global’s 2016 Partners Conference, supplied all attendees with itineraries, a live feed of content from all major social media platforms utilizing the #HPN16 hashtag, conference information and live updates.

Building Anticipation

A month before the event, the app was already booming with hundreds of opens.

Accessibility

The app was utilized throughout the event by attendees and coordinators alike. It was optimized for both Android and Apple products and was accessed from various portable devices.

Itinerary & Real-time Communication

The app had the full conference schedule at a push of a button. Coordinators could announce upcoming presentations and events via push notifications to boost attendance and most significantly, the app was utilized to communicate any changes in itinerary to attendees.

There was just under 100% adoption. There were roughly 450 attendees and most used the app:

On-Site Video

An integral part of media tactics in event social media strategy.

The first day’s video was uploaded that night at 9:05 p.m. A sleek, professionally shot and edited video produced in just a few hours. The video received hundreds of views within minutes, it is now at over 3.5K views and it’s the right people watching.

This video posted just past noon on the second day of the event went live with much anticipation. There were thousands of views by nightfall and is now tipping the scale into 6K views.

The third and last day’s video received over 3.5k views.

A sleek video to finish it off. This video garnered over 8k views.

Inspiring Future Attendance

Painting the future vision is key. A must for any event social media strategy.

These quick turnaround videos not only excite and entertain attendees, but also hold deep value in their ability to inspire future attendance. Non-attendees are enticed to register for future conferences by seeing the event in all its glory. Each video has thousands of views from all over the world.

Facebook Engagement

Facebook is the world’s leading social media platform. Thus, it is here where event social media efforts should be focused.

The engagement on the HPN Global Facebook page exploded during and after the event. It went from an average engagement count of about 75 to a simple photo of the beloved CEO, Bill Kilburg, receiving over 300 interactions. Live coverage of this event captured people’s attention.

And that wasn’t the only one… The engagement on the page that weekend and beyond was astounding. What does this tell us? That live event coverage draws lasting attention to a business page.

All in all, the digital strategy for this event was an (admittedly) expected success.